2010年12月13日星期一

the Ancient Pingyao Town

Ancient Pingyao City in Shanxi province was constructed first in the Zhou Dynasty . It was put on the World Cultural Heritages List in 1997 by UNESCOWCHC. The magnificent city is surrounded by a 6.4 km . long city wall , which is the longest city wall of a county built fairly early in history now existent in shanxi province as well as in whole China.
 
  The city wall now was constructed in early Ming Dynasty . It was square in shape , 12 m. high and 5 m. thick in average . The wall is stuffed with pressed earth . The wall surfaces are laid with bricks . The top of the wall is paved with bricks to drain water . On the wall are crenels . Outside the wall is a moat 4 m . deep . The wall has six gateways , two in east and two in west , one is south and one in north . All the gateways protrude outward with one outer gate and one inner ate , in the shape of a urn . Because of the shape of the city , it is nicknamed "tortoise city." The tow gateways in the north and south are the tail and the head . The four gateways in the east and west are the four feet . There are two wells in the south gateway , which may be compared to two eyes of the tortoise . The four gateways in the east and the west bend toward the "head" , as if the tortoise is crawling forward .
 
  There are six high gate towers over the six gateways . At the four corners are four corner towers about 7 m . high . About every 50 m . is a city platform (nicknamed "horse face" ) . In addition , there are 72 watch towers on the city wall and 3,000 crenels in its top , which is said to represent the 72 meritorious men and 3,000 disciples of Confucius . In the recent centuries the city wall has played a great role in military defense and flood control . Inside he city wall , the ancient administrative their original forms and provides real , objective information for researches on city walls of counties in the Ming Dynasty . 
 
2010-12-13

Xuxifenglily

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